The Potter Games : A Fanfiction Story
by tadiwam
Summary: If you've ever seriously wondered what it would be like for Katniss, in the middle of the Quarter Quell, and Hermione, racking her brains along with Harry and Ron for possible Horcrux locations, to switch places unexpectedly, this is the place for you! Happy Hungry Wizards!
1. Chapter 1

**Introductory Chapter**

**Hermione**

We were in the woods where they held the Quidditch World Cup three years ago, and as I sat by the entrance of the tent, a dense canopy of trees extending their leaves and branches to each other against a starry, dozing sky above me, I felt memory after memory wash in: the barbaric singing of both those who had lost and won, the emerald incandescence of the Irish leprechaun, the attack on the Muggle family by the Death Eaters, the appearance in over a decade of the Dark Mark. It still amazed me greatly that Harry had been extremely close to an escaped Azkaban convict that night, that he could have died, or worse: been captured and whisked away to Voldemort. But this was Harry Potter, my friend, master evader of Death, one who threw himself in its path every so often, as if they were friends who let occur between them a game of cops and robbers, the robber, constantly on the run, avoiding capture, being Harry. His courage, and apparent affinity to save people in life-endagering situations, to risk his own life for the greater good, was, of course, highly admirable but no less dangerous as well. I fretted frequently about him.

They slept inside the tent. Ron, twisting and turning, hunger clawing at his innards, his very soul. Harry, quiet, brow-furrowed, thoughtful- looking in sleep, as I had seen on nights like these. Soon he would wake and insist he take up watch. I was feeling particularly tired that day (I'd been earlier searching for and trying to identify wild mushroom near the riverbank for more than four hours) so I couldn't wait to get in and get some rest. The _Tales of Beedle the Bard_ was on my lap, the runes on the rough ancient pages illuminated by wandlight, but I was not able to decipher any further lest my eyes fell to the ground. Guiltily, I thought how alert I was supposed to be, eyes wide and back straight, watching the woods for any sign of movement and scrutinizing the dark ground littered by dead leaves for a treading foot hidden by an Invisibility Cloak or Disillusionment Charm. I could not, could not afford to fail, as it was my fault that we were here, starving and cold and in need of a plan that, strictly speaking, wasn't there. I wondered what Yaxley and the other Death Eaters could have done to Kreacher by now, if they had cornered the cunning elf at all.

There was a scuffling near a curvy beech to my left, and I tensed up and tightened my hold on my wand, ready to stun, or kill if need be, but it was the silhouette of a badger foraging clumsily for food. I was thinking of who might have had a badger Patronus in Dumbledore's Army(Ernie? Or Parvati?), when I heard Ron's yawn, unmistakably long and drawn out, and his scrambling to the entrance of the tent.

"Everything alright?" he said, looking upwards to the trees. He was still quite pale, face shining in the moonless darkness eerily, but far better than when he had lain drenched in blood on the forest floor two days ago.

"Yes, did I wake you? I hardly made a sound," I said.

"Nah, I've been awake for a while now. Too hungry, you see?"

"Obviously." I turned away from him. It was not that the rudeness about his hunger that he had been exhibiting over the last couple of days had got to me, but lately, he had been talking behind Harry's back, and trying to pull me in as well and right now I could sense that he was about to appraise our position in our mission to get rid of Voldemort again. It wasn't anything venomous or loudly back-stabbing to Harry; he was just frustrated that there was no plan about the Horcruxes in sight.

"The Horcrux's just there. Around his neck," he said after a while, laying his head down on the leafy ground, half his torso still in the tent.

"Please, Ron, not now."

"Okay. But we're still effing clueless, aren't we?"

I ignored that and asked if he wanted to take up watch, told him I was really tired, might need an Anti-Sleep Potion soon enough. He said he didn't mind but I immediately reconsidered because when he tried to sit up again, his face went whiter than milk.

"Harry's waking up soon, anyway," I said.

He woke up twelve minutes after Ron's snores started rising into the world again, his glasses askew and one side of his face printed by the back of the hand which he had slept against.

"Nothing weird?" Harry asked, sitting beside me, visibly groggy.

"No, but we need to move away from here as early as we can," I said. "It's not very safe staying in one place, is it? I mean, the chances of us being found by anyone..."

"Right," Harry said, adjusting his glasses. "I reckon we should do it in the morning or maybe just after midnight? It's ten o'clock."

"Just after midnight sounds alright," I said, happy that we'd come down to a decision fast. "Just wake us when you're ready," I added, pushing my head between the flaps of the tent entrance.

**Katniss **

I feel as though the world is this one giant ship swaying on angry waters. Johanna Mason just hit my head with the coil that we were supposed to have unwound for Beetee's plan, and she hurt my head, all right, flinging me into a firm state of dizziness. I'm starting to feel a panic rise in me as the darkness and tropical heat dance in waves around me. I left Peeta with Finnick. The thought ricochets against the inside of my skull, becoming amplified whenever the pain in my head pulses. I left Peeta with Finnick. I need to go back to the tree, but I can hardly focus to move anywhere reasonable without tottering sideways like a drunk.

However, quite soon, after a couple of wild moments in which I scream Peeta's name and hear no response, in which the canon blasts a few times and Finnick yells for me, probably to lure me to some trap, I find myself pointing my arrow at the force field, the wire from Beetee's coil fastened to its tail. I release it just as the lightning strikes and the explosion that ensues knocks my body away into space. The last thing I remember is a lot of light.

**Hermione**

All three of us stood in a circle, holding hands, on the spot where the tent had been earlier. In the brief moment just before we Apparated, I felt vulnerable, exposed, and a thought that didn't make sense, but that had that quality of actually making sense, that told me for some reason that we were in danger, flashed through my mind, blinding every other thing. But what could happen, honestly? What _could_ happen, Granger? Sometimes, I thought I over-did things, over-analysed, over-reacted, over-kissed (Viktor, in my fourth year, near Hagrid's house, just outside the library, at the Owlery, him always telling me, to my great embarrassment, to slow down and not open my mouth so much). I needed to be cool. Be cool, Granger. For once.

But as we turned and the familiar darkness wrapped around my senses, I felt my body go rigid, as if Full-Body-Binded or Stunned. We had been struck by someone who had been waiting unseen in the bushes, whose spell had managed to just slip into our area of Apparition. I felt Ron and Harry's hands slowly slipping away, perspiration acting as a lubricant, like on the day Yaxley grabbed me at the Ministry of Magic. Could it be him? Yaxley? I had no time to think, no time to feel my friends' hands trying to hold onto mine desperately, when I was engulfed by light and thrown into nothingness.

**Harry**

As soon as Harry's feet touched solid ground, he immediately turned to his left, his heart beating fast, to see what was wrong with Hermione, if she was still even with them, for her hand had slid out of contact with his. They had Apparated to the outskirts of a small, quiet town and as its dull lights glowed faintly ahead of him, he saw no sign of her.

"Ron!" Harry hissed, igniting his wand. "Ron, where's Hermi – "

"Harry, we need to go back! Now!"

"Hermione!" Harry shouted, ignoring his fear that they were an easy target for a Death Eater in the darkness.

Ron grabbed Harry by the shoulder hard and together they turned on the spot, their feet soon on the leafy forest floor again. Harry pointed his wand into the trees and bushes, read to curse, his eyes straining to see a figure, dead or alive. Ron whispered Hermione's name loudly, moving here and there, no reply silencing his dread. Harry felt his feet go numb and he swayed slightly on the spot, the energy drained out of him.

"You don't think...?" said Ron weakly.

"I..." For the first time in his life, Harry didn't know what to do, what to think, what to say. He felt like the only thing he could do from now on until he died, whenever that was, was to just stand there at a complete loss. After what felt like years, he heard Ron whisper Hermione's name again, sobs lining his voice.

After an hour, in which they searched the place until they were familiar with every rock, every shrub for Hermione or any clues that might have explained her disappearance, and they called out her name, and devised, between angry bursts of emotion, a plan to rescue her, they Apparated back to the small town, hoping (but knowing it was unlikely) that she was there instead, and that she had set up the incantations and was worried "horribly about both of you", as she would have put it.

Harry was just about to suggest they go to Hogwarts and inform Dumbledore's Army of what had happened when Ron, far behind him, gasped and said, "Hermione?"

Harry felt his heart leap into his larynx, and he ran towards Ron, who stood before a figure lying motionless on the ground, hair spreading out in radiating spokes on the grass. Harry thought it must have been the lack of light, but Hermione's hair seemed darker, straighter, and her cheeks were fuller, not to mention that her outfit had completely changed. He stopped behind Ron.

Ron turned towards him, face tear-stained, all the pallor gone, and said, "It's not her."

"What?" Although he really wasn't asking. Then, a real question, "Who is it?"

"I dunno. _Lumos._"

It wasn't her for sure. It was another girl, unconscious, blood splattering the left side of her face and soaking her long, black hair, clad in a tight-fitting, swimming-like costume with the number 12 printed on the breast.

"Is she a witch?" Ron asked.

"Could be, but she's dressed as a Muggle," Harry said. But there was something very un-Muggle about the way she had been present on the spot where they had just Apparated and lost Hermione. She could have been a Snatcher, judging by her filthy appearance, or even a Death Eater.

"Who is this?" Harry asked again, harsher, without really expecting an answer, and after studying the girl for a while further, trying to connect her image with a name, he pointed his wand at her and bound her hands and feet with thick, snake-like ropes, a part of him certain that she was somehow responsible for Hermione's disappearance.

**Hermione**

When I emerged, my body being able to move freely again but sore-feeling and, unreasonably, feather rendered, I was surprised by something descending on me, closing in ominously like a stalking cat; I lay on my back, wand limp in hand, the beaded bag stabbing my thigh underneath. Aware of terrible noise everywhere, explosions, bright displays of hot illumination and slowly falling trees billowing as fire engulfed their barks. I thought, with a flash of fright, of Harry and Ron, where they could be in this sudden, unexplainable confusion and I attempted to sit up, but the approaching thing, claw-like, metallic, had snatched me up and was lifting me somewhere, to safety most likely, away from all this, but, still, to a safety of unknown safety. I struggled, flailed, but a force unseen held me down. This, along with panic and worry for Ron and Harry, made me faint once again but, later, I was to wake up to a strange, most unlikely place.


	2. Poem

It is on these terms that I cease to speak

To the feel of the tongue and moon of Panem.

Bird of air walks away to new universe.

-Erene Odair

From the author:

Hello there! Hi. So... I like to write and do stuff like mixing ice cream with peanut butter and cornflakes (you might want to enhance that with salt or whatever). I'm that weird but what's even weirder is that I'm, like, a pedophile for children's books. LOL. AND I'm 18. So... um, you can message me, we'll, um, talk about cool cat videos or something. Hope you like the story! Feel free to leave a review, I'd love to hear your opinion. Happy Hungry Wizards, and may the nads be never in your savour! ;)


	3. Chapter 2

**Katniss**

The boy with the freckles, the tall, lanky one, has his legs crossed and, not so far from me, a metre maybe, he sits on the rocky, uneven ground like it isn't uncomfortable. The other one stands at the entrance of the cave, back to us, and all I see of him is his silhouette. The day outside is bright but cold, a little wet, too, weather I have to get used to if I don't want to catch pneumonia, like this kid my mother tried to save a few months before my first Games.

They have unbound my wrists and ankles. I'm grateful for the relief but still indignant that I was made like a prisoner, treated as a criminal who has killed even Death. I'm still in severe shock and so I haven't spoken, not a word. Yesterday they eventually just shook their heads and deemed me innocent and not a dark magician or whatever. But not after they shook me roughly by the shoulders, pointed their sticks at my forehead and neck, a vicious interrogation in which I was asked if I ate Death, if I snatched things and if I was working for a Voldemort. Where Hermione was. I had gone dizzy when I had seen the one with the glasses point the stick, the magician's wand, at a small stream earlier today and seen little fish fly out like alarmed birds into his spread-out jacket. After they had set up the fire to cook the fish, which they didn't eat, I assumed, because of their grief (they offered me some but I pretended not to hear, there was no way I going to eat magic) the bespectacled boy told me I was to wear a blindfold each time I was told to.

"So that you don't see the magic, Muggles aren't supposed to, they'll track us down, they're already doing it, anyway," had been his explanation, when a blank look had been my response. The freckled boy had stood nodding behind his friend, hands deep in his I thought was: _they_? _Muggles_?

The white piece of cloth lay folded in my pocket. I wore it quite often because I had to because these were magicians, who could make me into something I didn't want to be in a second if I didn't do what I was ordered to do. I must have looked calm to them as I sat on the smooth, strikingly dome-shaped rock (reminded me, with a strangle at the heart, of the arena), but inside me it was a chaos of questions that craved answers, confusion and shock and fear lying around like things in a messy room. What was happening? Why was I here, with these strangest of strange people? What was happening? Why was I not dead, my body being delivered to Prim and my mother in 12? _Was_ I dead? Was this a bizarre form of an afterlife, in which magic people threatened to kill you if you didn't disclose the whereabouts of a girl whose face you've never even imagined? Was this death, a joke of some kind?

I didn't sleep the previous night, and, I mean, how could I? I cried and screamed into my shirt as I lay on the cave floor, wrists raw from the rope that had pressed down so hard like teeth so that I couldn't comfortably lean the side of my head (which still hurt dully from the Johanna impact) on to them. Maybe if I cried, the force that had put me here would feel sorry and put me in a different place, maybe one that contained my father. Or Rue. A place with a meadow and willows and mockingjays that mimicked song. I had cried my eyes raw.

The freckled boy, I see from the corner of my eye, keeps glancing at me but I don't feel uncomfortable, as I would have in normal circumstances. I just stare at this rat scurrying at the other end of the cave, stroking my bow. They gave it back to me today but the black-haired boy has kept the arrows.


End file.
